From 1 March 2025 Queensland employers must implement a written prevention plan to manage the risk of sexual harassment and gender-based harassment at work.
Failing to do so could result in a maximum penalty of $9,678.
In practice, we expect this will be one of the first things Workplace Health and Safety Queensland investigates if it receives a complaint of sexual harassment from a worker (whether substantiated or not).
This builds upon amendments introduced in September 2024 that introduced an express positive duty for PCBUs to manage psychosocial risks.
What does your prevention plan need to include?
The Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011 require prevention plans to amongst other things:
- be in writing and to identify and state each identified risk;
- identify the control measure implemented to manage each identified risk;
- be drafted in consultation with workers, and describe that consultation process;
- set out the procedure for dealing with reports of sexual or sex/gender-based harassment, including how a person may make a report and how it will be investigated; and
- be set out and expressed in a way that is readily accessible and understandable to workers
Further duties
A PCBU must ensure workers are made aware of the prevention plan and know how to access it.
Moreover, the plan must be reviewed if a report of sexual harassment or sex/gender based harassment is made, if requested by a WHS representative or, otherwise, every 3 years.
Failing to comply with any of these further duties could result in a maximum penalty of $9,678.
Need a Compliant Prevention plan?
Batch Mewing lawyers offers a fixed fee prevention plan – if you would like a quote please complete the form below: